Healx bags £1.5m for drug repurposing

Healx has bagged an investment of £1.5 millions to help progress its work in the field of 'repurposing' existing medicines for new rare diseases.

Amadeus Capital Partners and healthcare entrepreneur Jonathan Milner are taking part in a Series A round of financing for the British healthcare group, the board members of which include biotech entrepreneur Darrin Disley and drug development leader, David Brown, who co-invented Viagra.

Healx, founded and based in Cambridge, uses advanced data analytics, such as machine learning and computational biology techniques, alongside scientific literature analysis, to identify novel drug applications for rare diseases that afflict some 350 million people worldwide.

"With huge pressure on R&D budgets, drug repositioning will be essential in the fight against rare diseases," said Hermann Hauser, Partner and co-Founder of Amadeus Capital Partners. "With this investment, Healx will take up a leadership position in the drug repurposing sector, expected to be worth over $31 billion by 2020."

Healx has a scalable technology platform which allows it to match potential treatments to rare conditions and patients and, thanks to a data mining approach, it aims to complete drug repurposing studies within six months, much faster than historical literature-based studies, the firm noted.

"With this investment, Healx will have the resources to expand our technology platform and accelerate our drug review process to find treatments to many more devastating illnesses," said chief executive Tim Guilliams.